1. Technical Field
The present disclosure generally relates to the maintenance of user state and historical data, such as (without limitation) web identity, personal information, privacy preferences, opt-out choices, and prior user actions and behavior, using a browser program.
2. Description of the Related Art
HTTP cookies are a commonly used by web server systems to store user attribute data on user computing devices. When a user requests a web page, the user's browser sends the previously stored cookie or cookies pertaining to the requested page with the page request. The web server system typically uses the received cookie data to personalize the requested page, and/or to track the user's browsing behavior.
To protect user information, browsers are designed to transmit only those cookies that correspond to the domain of the requested page or other object. Thus, a cookie set by a web server in one Internet domain ordinarily will not be transmitted to a web server in another Internet domain. In some cases, a web page of a site may include a reference that allows a third party site to set a cookie on the computing devices of users who access the page. Such third-party cookies are used extensively in the online advertising and analytics industries to identify behavior associated with a pseudonymous user identification code, allowing these companies to associate multiple behaviors across a myriad of sites with a single pseudonymous identity.
It has also become common practice for a site that engages in behavioral tracking to offer users the opportunity to not participate, or “opt-out” of the tracking. The users' opt-out preferences are commonly stored on the user computing devices as cookies. One problem with this approach is that it is not well suited for enabling a user to make a single opt-out or other preference selection that applies to multiple web sites across multiple domains. Another problem is that privacy management and security tools commonly delete the cookies that represent the users' opt-out and other preference selections.
There is thus a need for an improved system and method for storing user preference data and/or other state data.